Don’t let the three goals deceive you, the first Monday Night Football of the new Premier League season was a dull affair between Chelsea and West Ham. Diego Costa probably should have been sent off for a late challenge on Adrian, but he ended up firing home the winner from around 25 yards out. The game was void of any real chances, so the fact the goals were a penalty, a moment of magic and a scrappy goal from a corner, shouldn’t really surprise anyone.
The Teams:
Antonio Conte’s first Chelsea team was full of power, he played a 4-1-4-1 formation with Nemanja Matic and Oscar ahead of new signing Ngolo Kante. There was no place for Cesc Fabregas in the team. The front three for Chelsea was the expected front three with Eden Hazard and Willian flanking Diego Costa. Chelsea’s back five was the same despite the fact they played poorly towards the end of last year.
West Ham played a 4-3-3 formation that had the possibility of switching to a narrow diamond when they had possession. Michail Antonio continued at right back despite the fact it hasn’t worked in the past, there was also a league debut in midfield for Norwegian midfielder Havard Nordtveit as he played behind Mark Noble and Cheikhou Kouyate. Andy Carroll started up front and he was flanked by Andre Ayew and rather oddly, Enner Valencia.
Chelsea go Direct: Chelsea spent most of last season playing possession football with no real end game, but they started this game much differently. They used a lot of direct running from midfield and Diego Costa often carried the ball from deep, this created space for Chelsea’s runners to attack from deep and Oscar exploited this very well. Costa actually managed to complete six dribbles in the game, which signals a change in his style courtesy of Antonio Conte. Chelsea also opted for a high line and this constricted the space that West Ham were allowed to break into, this was a positive strategy because West Ham packed their midfield with power as they planned to do a lot of counter attacking. This was a huge change from last year as Chelsea would often drop into two banks, this meant they were very easy to play against. They made a lot of tackles in West Ham’s half, N’Golo Kante didn’t have his best game but all five of his tackles came just inside West Ham’s half which illustrates their aggressive approach.
West Ham poor in possession: It may seem harsh to have a go at West Ham considering they weren’t favourites, but this performance was really poor regardless of the gulf in class. Their distribution from midfield was pitiful as the trio of Noble, Kouyate and Nordveidt failed to provide penetrative passes or incisive runs to the final third. West Ham’s ball circulation was too slow and this meant that they lacked width and ended up floating a lot of passes in the direction of Andy Carroll. To highlight just how disjointed West Ham were,- Gokhan Tore and Andre Ayew only had 23 touches between them in the entire game in the right wing role, this is worrying.
The Hammers attempted to play narrow 4-3-3 with the full backs providing the width. In practice, this makes sense as Chelsea’s wingers aren’t exactly known for their terrific work rate of defensive tactical awareness, but the build up play was simply too slow and they didn’t create enough openings for the full backs. What often happened was Antonio and Masuaku would go up field but the ball wouldn’t ever find it’s way to them. This often meant West Ham would try to force long passes towards the wide areas, Chelsea dealt with this relatively easily.
Michail Antonio is a terrific player, he is a dual threat in many ways because he can dribble past players but he is also a powerful player who can win aerial duels. Sticking him at right back was an admirable experiment but it has to stop if West Ham are to progress- he is poor defensively and he often fails to get involved in central areas. This is a problem because he isn’t as effective on the overlap as he would be playing in and around the box. Below you can see just how isolated he was, he only received a handful of passes in the game and most of them came in West Ham’s own half.
Eden Hazard: Chelsea’s attacking system today was designed to best accommodate Eden Hazard, it is fair to say that it worked in a good way. Although his efficiency was a slight problem, he played much better than he did at any point last year. He completed nine dribbles, made one key pass and touched the ball 82 times which was more than any other attacking player on the pitch. He did what he was best at which is running at players and beating them. Conte told his full backs to play inside which created isolated situations in Hazard’s favour on the flanks, West Ham had no real answer to this.
Hazard struggled to fit in Mourinho’s rigid 4-2-3-1 system because he was often playing in intricate situations, a more direct system with dynamic wing play will do him a lot of good, a comeback year should really be expected.
Chelsea’s spacing was overall very good, the central midfielders covered a fair bit of ground and this did a decent job of stretching West Ham. They will, however, need more creativity in future games as they won’t always be able to power through compact defences. Nemanja Matic didn’t put a foot wrong, but he isn’t a good fit alongside Oscar as he doesn’t really mask his weaknesses.
Nordtveit has room for Improvement: Defensively, West Ham don’t have to worry too much apart from their glaring Michail Antonio issue at right back. They held a good structure throughout the game and made it pretty difficult for Chelsea. One slight concern was the debut of Norwegian midfielder Havard Nordveidt however, he didn’t perform that well as the deep midfielder as he only completed one tackle and this was coupled with terrible distribution and a lack of mobility. It’s unfair to judge him as a player after his debut, but I don’t see what he offers in a midfield three alongside Mark Noble and Cheikhou Kouyate as he offers nothing different to them. He just seemed to be ‘there’, the game passed him by and he appeared to have no tactical role.
Conclusion: Overall, this was a relatively forgettable game that was characterised by safe midfield passing and both teams trying to use the flanks. Chelsea did it better because they had Eden Hazard on their team, but their ball circulation was also much better than West Ham’s who were simply too slow for the majority of the game. The only real positive for West Ham was the fact that defensively they were relatively sound, but they have greater ambitions than this under David Gold and Slaven Bilic.
Antonio Conte got an important debut win against a tough side and his system maximised the talent of Eden Hazard whilst also making it extremely difficult for West Ham. They will, however, need to be more creative in future games if they want to challenge for the League title.
